SMOKING BAN WON'T STUB OUT CANNABIS HABIT IN AMSTERDAM

AMSTERDAM - Could a smoking ban spell the end of Amsterdam's
world-famous coffee shops, where smoking cannabis is one of the main
attractions?

No chance, says local conservative politician and coffee-shop owner
Michael Veling.

The Dutch may well follow other European countries in banning tobacco
smoking in restaurants, cafes and bars, possibly as soon as the
beginning of 2008, but Veling says it should still be possible to smoke dope.

He says the clientele who come to coffee shops to buy and inhale
cannabis will find a way around any ban on smoking the tobacco
products they routinely mix with marijuana resin or leaf in rolled
paper "joints."

"You can bring parsley or old socks if you want, cut them here and
smoke them, nobody will say anything," he says. "Plus there are plants
that have a very similar structure to tobacco and can maybe substitute
for it."

Veling says some clientele may use pipes, or contraptions such as the
'volcano,' a shiny, cone-shaped silver contraption that heats cannabis
to release vapours of THC and channels these into a long transparent
balloon.

But most of his European customers prefer to roll their marijuana with
tobacco into joints. One of them is Pavel Kotrba, sitting near the
entrance with a broad smile and dilated pupils.

If a ban came into force, he says: "I would smoke my joint on the
street in front of the coffee shop, no problem."